8 FOURTH ANNUAL MKETING. 



was on the understanding that tlie Society should retain 

 such portions of it as would be useful and interesting to 

 the county, but that the remainder should be seid to other 

 museums, to obtaln the means for supplylng the Society 

 with things which they needed for the proper display of 

 the museum. A hiut had, however, been thrown out that 

 some difficulty had arisen in taking this course. He 

 begged to ask Mr. Baker if this were really the case. 



Mr. Baker said there would be no difficulty whatever 

 in carrying out the object sought. He had a letter in his 

 pocket, which he had reeeived since he had been in Bath, 

 annoimcing that a gentleman would visit the museum on 

 the part of the Museum of Practical Geology, to purchase 

 articles of which there were duplicates. He (Mr. Baker), 

 with the valuable assistance of Mr. Moore, had selected 

 the species which he thought ought not to be parted with 

 to any Society. The directors of the Museum of Prac- 

 tical Geology had been informed that they could not have 

 any specimen of which the Society did not possess a 

 duplicate. (Hear.) The authorities of the British Mu- 

 seum, he might add, had applied to purchase the dupli- 

 cates of the Society, also the Cambridge Museum, and 

 a private gentleman. The reply of the Society had 

 invariably been that only those articles of which there 

 were duplicates, woiüd be disposed of. He was glad to say, 

 too, that such was the liberal feeling display ed by the 

 authorities in London, that the Society would obtain the 

 means, by the sale of duplicates, not only of fitting up 

 their museum, but of adding many rieh and valuable spe- 

 cimens which it did not now possess, and thus carrying out 

 the designs of the Society, to increase the importance of 

 the coUection. 



Mr. C. Moore read a paper on the Palaeontology of 

 the Middle and Upper Lias, which is given in Part II. 



